Many types of relatively small (e.g., hand-held) items are stocked on store shelves in boxes or cartons from which the item must be removed for visual and tactile examination by the shopper. Some types of packaging are designed to permit viewing of portions of the item, e.g., by blister or shrink packaging wherein the item is covered by transparent plastic affixed to an opaque card. However, the items are normally not viewable from all sides and may not be physically handled outside the package, as is often desirable, e.g., with items having parts intended for manual manipulation under conditions of actual use. Furthermore, when such items are stocked on pegs or shelves there is little or no room for advertising, promotional, or instructional material in the general area of the items without obstructing the space allocated for stocking the items. Advertising and promotional posters are typically pasted to the top or bottom shelf in a retail aisle making the posters difficult to read and making it frustrating for a customer trying to identify the item of merchandise to which the poster corresponds. Instructional materials are rarely available, and if available, are usually generic in nature and placed in an "out of the way" area not easily locatable by the customer.
Therefore, there is a need for a simple and economical, yet highly effective and versatile means of displaying merchandise items in a retail environment. There is further a need for a device which can support advertising, promotional, or instructive materials in the vicinity of the merchandise items being displayed without obstructing the items stocked on the shelves for sale. There is further the need for a display device which can support a plurality of display panels at one time and which is designed for simple interchangeability of such display panels. There is further the need for such a display device which permits selective mounting upon either a vertical surface having preformed holes therein, or upon a conventional track or channel member on the front edge of a store shelf.